Garner Inmates Learn Decisionmaking Skills Through Course

A group of four Garner Correctional Institution inmates and members of the Connecticut Thresholds decisional education program took part in graduation ceremonies on June 24 at the high-security prison on Nunnawauk Road. John Cross of the Thresholds program is seen addressing the group.

The art of decisionmaking, involving the use of judgment to reach suitable conclusions, is a skill that comes slowly through one’s experience amid the situations of a lifetime.

A volunteer group known as Thresholds Connecticut has been working to provide such decisional education for some inmates at Garner Correctional Institution, the state’s high-security prison at Nunnawauk Road.

On June 24, four Garner inmates who have been receiving such training during the past three months, gathered in the prison with Thresholds volunteers to mark the inmates’ graduation from a “decisional education” course designed to explain the best approaches to personal decisionmaking.

Thresholds is a nonprofit group that seeks to foster positive relations between state prisons and the community, according to Thresholds.

The Thresholds approach is motivational, with one of the volunteers speaking at the event urging that the inmates strive to become the best person that they can possibly become, and urging that the prisoners never return to a prison after they are discharged following their sentences.

Four inmates — Kyle, 35; Randall, 34; Maleek, 42; and Mwata, 28 — listened attentively during the program. The men, who sat in chairs arrayed in an arc, are serving lengthy prison terms on felony convictions.

Thresholds volunteer Barbara Sireno stressed the importance of the “five steps” that the program teaches as the means to effective decisionmaking.

Thresholds volunteers have been working at Garner for the past two years, he said.

Garner inmates receive instruction from a variety of volunteer groups.

The Thresholds program has operated in 14 Connecticut prisons. It has been in operation at Cheshire Correctional since 1973.

Mr Cross said that the Thresholds program is seeking volunteers who want to work with inmates in a prison setting. Mr Cross said that people interested in learning more about the group may contact Barbara Sireno at 203-272-5028. Information also is available at thresholdsct.org.